Cal favorite Henry’s scores big with the food

This is Chronicle restaurant critic Michael Bauer’s Between Meals column, an update of the restaurants he visits as he searches for the next Top 100 Restaurants. His main dining reviews, which include a ratings box, are written only after three or more visits.

Cocktails, including the manhattan (rear), are well-crafted and spiritous.

Cocktails, including the manhattan (rear), are well-crafted and spiritous.

Photo: Michael Bauer / The Chronicle

Photo: Michael Bauer / The Chronicle

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Cocktails, including the manhattan (rear), are well-crafted and spiritous.

Cocktails, including the manhattan (rear), are well-crafted and spiritous.

Photo: Michael Bauer / The Chronicle

Cal favorite Henry’s scores big with the food

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While the food at Henry’s in Berkeley consistently received mediocre ratings on crowdsourced reviews, it has long been a major gathering place around college sporting events, since it’s only a block from the UC campus.

Now, with a remodel of the hotel and restaurant, the place can be cheered as much for its food as for its convenience for celebrating a Cal Bears victory.

The restaurant might be known by locals for a 1990 incident in which 33 people were held hostage and one person was killed and seven injured. Since then, it has had several owners. The newest, the owners of the Graduate Berkeley hotel (formerly the Durant Hotel), smartly brought in Chris Kronner of KronnerBurger to revamp the menu, which debuted last month. Kronner has amassed a group of first-rate veterans, including Jeffery Hayden, the opening chef of Del Popolo in San Francisco.

Not to diminish the art of constructing a hamburger, but Kronner proved himself as a more wide-ranging chef at places like the now defunct Slow Club and Bar Tartine. Equally talented, Hayden has created some of the best salads I’ve had in a pizzeria.

Photo: Michael Bauer, The Chronicle

The hamburger is made with a Tartine sweet potato bun

The hamburger is made with a Tartine sweet potato bun

All those qualities were on display on my visit to Henry’s, where the interior has a kind of old-world look with the traditional redwood bar, dark wood floors and box-beam ceiling. A hundred seats are divided between the tavern and dining room. The result is casual and comfortable, and it feels like this new Henry’s could have been around since the original hotel opened in 1928.

Cocktails are first-rate, whether it’s the exceptional manhattan ($12) that veers toward the spiritous side, or the smoky tattletail ($12) with scotch. These go particularly well with fried maitake mushrooms and flowering broccoli ($14), served with a rice wine vinaigrette.

You can get such bar food as smoked potato chips with vegan French onion dip ($8), spicy chicken wings in Fresno chile hot sauce ($12) and oysters on the half shell ($18).

But the restaurant offers much more than just bar food. I would quickly head back for the asparagus and snap peas ($14), the vegetables both shaved and chunked to give them different textures and flavors before being tossed with roasted fennel, cashews and fried garlic in a vinaigrette with a minty nuance.

Photo: Michael Bauer, The Chronicle

The cocktails, including the Manhattan (rear) are well balanced and spiritous

The cocktails, including the Manhattan (rear) are well balanced and...

And, of course, there’s the Henry’s Burger ($16) — but not the same one you’d find at KronnerBurger. Yet it is practically as good, stacked with pickles, onions, lettuce and a special sauce on a sweet potato bun crafted by Tartine. It’s served with excellent fries.

You can get a glimpse of Kronner’s sophistication in the coal-smoked roasted lamb neck ($25), a fist-size chunk of gooey meat and bone covered with thickly grated carrot salad with mint and chile oil. Other main courses include pork sausage ($16), rockfish with pistachio salsa ($19) and fried chicken with celery pickles ($16).